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Do I Need to be Certified to Work as a Medical Assistant?

In general, NO, you don’t have to be a certified medical assistant to accept a medical assisting position. Check with your State Medical Board, the State Medical Board/Board of Medical Examiners is the entity which oversees how doctors run their medical practice and how their staff can be utilized and is to be supervised.

Often the minimum requirement to qualify for a medical assistant position is being 18 years old, having a high school diploma, CPR and First Aid certification, and a clean criminal record background check, if that much, since this does not apply to everywhere; however, there ARE a handful states that require special training and specific limited licenses for medical assistants whose duties include highly technical and invasive skills, such as venipuncture and phlebotomy, starting and flushing IV lines, administering certain types of injections, dispensing medications, or exposing patients to X-rays and ultrasound examinations. The State Board of Medical Examiners in your state can tell you more.

One thought on “Do I Need to be Certified to Work as a Medical Assistant?”

Background checks on medical assistants are desperately needed. NEW laws needed to allow ALL states in USA access to criminal histories….Prior California Medical assistant, Matthew McDuffie, aka Matt McDuffie, with past history of abusing autistic patient in his care while living in California, now gets medical assistant certificate in Washington DC and nobody there seems to know his abusive past. We need more laws that allow people to check others states to see which caregivers have a past history of abusing vulnerable patients in their care.